'only ever has to give me love forever & forever'

My experience with bad Valentine's Day gifts (perhaps bad gifts in general) started in eighth grade, when my flaxen-haired, freckled face crush presented me with a hand tooled, red leather wallet purchased in Mexico and carried lovingly back to the Midwest when his family returned home from a Christmas holiday trip. I was, needless to say, thrilled! Ecstatic! My crush had gifted me with his heart! This must really be love!

Never mind that up until that morning, when he shoved the present at me with a heartfelt "here," between our English and math lessons, I was not his crush. His crush was another girl in our class. Another girl with whom I shared initials and a briefly one-sided affinity for this boy's heart. (Did I mention this hand tooled, red leather wallet purchased in Mexico and carried lovingly back to the Midwest had my - her's/ours - initials in it? It did. We shared first and middle names, and our last names started with the same letter. So thoughtful!).

After P.E., my doppelganger with better adolescent breasts and a trampoline in her backyard (one and a half strikes against me, dammit!), rebuked the affections of my one true love, thus compelling him to give me the gift.

Except strike "compelling" and make that " he resigned himself."

And I LOVED it! As much as my eighth grade, "I'm going to marry a rock star and be happy, happy" heart could bear. I believed his giving me the gift and being spurned by She Who Shared My Initials would indeed drive him into my open arms (admit it - right now you're hearing Journey in your head, aren't you!?) and we'd be going together by lunch, which would really just be dating in name only, what with him sitting with his friends and me with mine. Mine who would be all gooey and jealous by my hot boyfriend and sexy - yet very practical - gift!

Of course, this was not to be. As I was writing my new "pretend we're married, no longer sharing initials with She Who Shared My Initials" names into swirly hearts on my Trapper Keeper, my paramour jabbed me in the back during science lab and asked for the wallet back. Just like that.

"Give me back the wallet."

Not "Can I maybe have the wallet back, please?"

Not "I'm going to break your heart now so why don't you just keep the wallet as a symbol of my love and fidelity, which was very brief, but very real in your mind."

Just "Give me back the wallet."

So I did. Head held high, all "Oh, you mean this wallet? This hideous hand tooled, red leather wallet purchased in Mexico and carried lovingly back to the Midwest that you're now apparently going to give to She Who Shares My Initials who is hanging on you like a new species of parasite and is acting all stupid and 'Oh, gross, I wonder if I can wash the germs off this after SHE touched it?!' and giggling to her friends about how you two are going together now? Because if that's the one you mean, then here, take it. It sucked anyway."

Of course, I also thought, "One day, mark my words! I will exact my revenge upon you in the form of too many words written for anonymous people the world wide to read and think 'dick,' and this essay shall be called a blog. Or something as equally odd sounding. So there! Bleh."

Ironically, it was also around the time of this experience that I paved the way for my role as "The Portal Through Which All Must Pass If You Wish To Date, Fondle or Otherwise Mack On Any Of My Friends." TFTWAMPIYWTDFOOMOAOMF for short. But that's a story for another time. Oh, and not 'pass through' as in 'have sex with' because seriously dude, it was eighth grade.

Though She Who Shares My Initials did get more than just that handsome wallet from my crush, it would later be discovered.

And yes. That irritated me, too!

So, long story short, my Valentine's Day gift experience bites. Bites big giant chunks out of bad, waxy Russell Stover candy, then grimaces when it realizes it got that weird cherry nougat piece, so it sticks it back in the heart shaped box with the big, ugly plastic rose on top for the next unsuspecting victim who strolls in, all "OOH! Candy!!" and is stuck with nibbled on candy, but who maybe looks around to be sure no one is looking, then pops it into their mouth and eats it really fast anyway.

Food issues, people. A topic for another long winded post.

Aside from the gift of his love and my two sons (aww!), my husband doesn't do so well in the gift buying department. A short list of items he's purchased for me in our Valentine's Day tenure include: the Beavis and Butthead Experience (on cassette! and which, OK, didn't suck too much, because "Looking Down a Barrel of A Gun" by Anthrax is on there, and in the array of songs I admit to quoting from, Aerosmith's "Deuces are Wild" ranks high); the soundtrack to Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (whereupon we graduated to CDs); a toaster; a men's shaving kit; and lip balm. That last one? It was on a rope. ITo wear like a necklace. If I were eight years old. And even then, I'd be "Lip balm on a rope? Really?"

I realize it's the thought that counts. That's why, when I am buying a gift for someone, I truly do take into consideration their interests and things they've mentioned they might like and then shop accordingly. However, in my husband's gorgeous head, "the thought that counts" means "Oh, crap! I think today is one of those days I'm supposed to get her something! Let me just flip an illegal U-turn here on the highway and race back to Walgreen's for a quick scan of the clearance aisles!"

Trust me. I've seen the receipts. Very few of the gifts I've ever gotten from him have been purchased more than two hours before he gave them to me.

In his defense, I will say that my husband hasn't struck out at EVERY gift giving opportunity, including not every Valentine's Day. Some years he has surprised me with beautiful jewelry and even some CDs I can tolerate. And I should confess that, while I do like gifts (I can't help it), I do try to make these experiences about much, much more than the tangible token that can come with it. Though, seriously, I freakin' lost it when I got the men's shaving kit. Hello!! One glance down at my then-lactating decolletage made it pretty damn clear I am not a dude!

Though in retrospect, I do hope ::shiver:: my husband wasn't hoping for/thinking I was a fat dude with massive DDs...

On this Valentine's Day, my husband will be out of town for work, and I'm somewhat sure that he really isn't even aware that it will be February 14th, because he's been entirely too busy to care. That's fine. When he comes home, I'll have made plans for our children to be elsewhere, and I'll prepare some fancy feast and dessert for him, which may quite likely then be followed by some of the Sexy Sex (patent-pending). Unless he says he's too full from the steaks and gooey brownies. Then I'll have to work some magic to launch the marathon. I've got a few ideas in mind. Trust me. They're good ideas.

Consider those ideas my gift to him.

And if he should happen to come home with a hand tooled, red leather wallet purchased in Mexico imprinted with my present day initials, well, that would rock.

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Speaking of red things, here's a little something that doesn't suck in the gift department. Though, I suppose, calling it a gift is a tiny stretch. This is more a "Like he wouldn't do this if I said something! Geez! As IF!"

This makes me giggle, naturally, and maybe clap my hands together about 12 times, really fast, right in front of my face. OK, 15 times.

I wuvz thes. Plz seys u wuvz thes, two.